Up #2

Up #2

The word up was spelled in a number of ways in Old English, including up & uppe. It meant up or upward & came from the Proto-Indo-European word upo, which also gave us the Greek word hypo (as in hypo-allergenic, hypochondriac & hypodermic).

In last week’s post I mentioned that up performs as an adverb, noun, verb & adjective. I missed something. Up also functions as a preposition.

Adverb – Marcel walks up the hill.

Adjective - Ophelia seems up today.

Verb - The grocer upped the price of blueberries today.

Noun - The market has its ups & downs.

Preposition - Madeleine’s speedy departure left Stanley up in the air.

And here are a few more uppish idioms:

1847 – The term getup (or get-up) refers to one’s costume. This appears to have come from the 1841 idiom getup meaning initiative or energy.

1853 – upholster is referred to by linguists as a “back formation” because it appears to be a base word, but actually came from the longer word (from 1610) upholsterer, which refers to a person who fixes furniture. Upholsterer comes from the word upholdester, which came from the word upholden back in the 1300s, and meant repair, uphold, keep from falling or sinking.

1891 – To send someone up the river, meaning to send someone to jail, originated in New York City, as the prison Sing Sing was up the Hudson River from the city.

1947 – upbeat, meaning with a positive mood, comes from the 1869 musical term upbeat, which labels the beat during a bar when the conductor’s baton is pointed upward.

1951 - To drive someone up the wall, meaning to annoy or irritate, came from the observed behavior of some animals (& patients) in cages.

Please use the comments section to tell me what’s up.

Big thanks to this week’s sources: Merriam Webster, Wordnik, Etymonline, & the OED.